Abstract
This thesis examines the evolution of music in the American Reform synagogue between 1948 and 2011, tracing a fundamental transformation in the theology of Jewish prayer as expressed through sound. Drawing on original oral history interviews with 44 scholars, cantors, composers, and institutional leaders, alongside archival materials, published scores, and foundational musicological scholarship, the project constructs an oral history of how Reform Jewish worship shifted from a model of performative distance to one of participatory immediacy.
In 1948, the American Reform synagogue was defined by its architecture of spectatorship: elevated bimas, organ and choir lofts positioned behind congregational seating, and a cantorial tradition rooted in European classical aesthetics and the virtuosic legacy of the Golden Age. By 2011, that sonic world had been almost entirely remade. The guitar had displaced the organ. The song leader had succeeded the cantor-as-soloist. The camp melody had entered the siddur, the Jewish Prayer book. This thesis traces how that transformation unfolded — not as an inevitable progression, but as the product of specific decisions made by composers, educators, and institutional leaders navigating competing visions of what Reform Jewish worship should be and mean.
Each chapter pairs historical narrative with close analysis of representative musical works, situating individual compositions within the broader trajectories of American Jewish life, the social, and theological forces that shaped congregational practice. The thesis argues that musical change in this period was inseparable from theological change — that decisions about harmony, instrumentation, and accessibility were ultimately decisions about the nature of prayer and the relationship between the worshipper and the Divine.